Palestinians and Algerians involved in land lines hacking.

Algiers criminal court will start the hearing of the former Iraqi ambassador driver to Algiers, and seven Palestinians including students and businessmen for being charged of hacking phone land lines of several foreign embassies based in Algiers along with official institutions including the presidential palace.

• The convicts, helped by other employees of the Algerian communication company, were using these phone lines to call to the gulf countries and others worldwide for more than four years. The embezzled amount of money totals more than billions transformed into hard currency and transferred abroad by the Palestinians.
• The scandal was brought to light in 2005 when the Argentinean embassy received an astronomic phone invoice following the use of its land lines.
• An inquiry was opened soon after and revealed that a network including 17 Algerians among them engineers at Algeria telecom and Palestinians.
• One of the convicts revealed that the Palestinians transferred huge sums of money in hard currency to their relatives abroad.